SCHOOL COMMITTEES' AND THE EDUCATION BOARD.

Clutha Leader, Volume IV, Issue 191, 8 March 1878, Page 7

SCHOOL COMMITTEES' AND THE EDUCATION BOARD.

The following- is the report of Mr ' WaddellV speech at the recent soiree at Hillend, for Avhich we were unable to find room in last issue. Mr Waddell, -Warepa, in the course of his speech said : There are two Avays in which School Committees can make the new Education Act acceptable to teachers — namely, 'by securing* 'regular attendance, and by electing* proper men to sit upon the Board of- Education.. You 'are aware that schoolmasters are now paid by the average attendance, consequently every time you keep a child from school you take so much out of the teacher's pocket \ every day you employ, a boy upon the farm you do so at the master's expense. Now teachers on the whole are not an avaricious class, for there are many of them Avho love their profession apart from its profit, and would make great pecuinary sacrifices rather than see their scholars suffer, but yet it is notoriously true that you can never get good men unless you pay tbem good salaries. Sam Slick says that down, in Slickville they can get "a man for 40 (lollars, but then, he adds, he is a4O dollar man. So if you want cheap teaching, you must -make up your mind to have it nasty. HoAvever, I have no great sympathy with the gloomy vaticinations oF many of my brethren, Avho have sad forebodings ol the dire effect which this Act is likely to have upon the scholastic exchequer, because I believe the settlers of Otago have too I much Scotch sagacity, and are too keenly alive, to their' own interests to alloAv their teachers to suffer, if. they don't deserve it — (applause.) In regard to the election of members of the Education Board, too great care cannot be exercised, as it will depend entirely upon that Board whether the Education Act turns out a failure or a success. This Act differs' irom most other Acts of Assembly in this that it is merely the framework or skeleton ofa bill, and it will, therefore, rest with the Education i Bw'ard to clothe it with flesh and' blood, and; according to thei." ability they may make of it either a man or a monkey. Noav, whilel.do not for one moment presume to criticise any of the nominnatiqns that have been made, yet I think ■ I" may venture to say; this without fear' of giving offence, for it is what most people win admit that it is absolutely necessary that those who are to-be charged with the oversight of education .should themselves be*" educated men— ; : (applause.) Those who had charge' of the measure_.eviden.ly knew that the House of .Representatives was not the place vvh.ere they qould legislate , upon matters demanding the greatest jlearning and educational experience, ahdTali-. cordingly -they- left them to the Boards of Education, on the understanding,^ presume, that they Avould be,, composed of.* the ?Schblhrship'randTirit-.lligence?of the Colony. It is true that no inconsiderable portion of the business of thej Board will consist in disposing y qi'\ matters in which any man of common" sense and ordinary education is! 4 quite fitted to give an opinion-- name]y,sshc-i

matters as the planting of schools and the nminten.aiH'V* of school "building's". Bui there are' other and far more important qii^.-.tions which it will have to •me ; qu'-*yinn-* such as n.*n'e but a Avellrtducated muz- can meet. What, for instance, can be more essential to the character nnd progress of our schools than that they should be subjecred to a system of" thorough nnd impartial inspection, yet our inspectors are under the control of this Board, and from it tbev will look for instructions ns to the special subjects on which they are to report, ana toil in all 4 cases of dispute rhev musi, go us a court of appeal. . The changes, if any, which must from time to time be mode upon the syllabus — the fitness or unfitness of certain schools to give instruction in the higher branches, the degrees of merit or other, principle according to which school masters are ro be paid and the grounds on which they are to be promoted— these are but a sample of the duties Avhich this, Board will be called upon to discharge * and I heed scarcely add that before it can perform them aright the ine.__bers oi it must make themselves acquainted -villi all educational systems and improvements here and at home, and must be conversant more or less with all these questions which are now agitating- the scholastic world as it was never agitated before— (applause.).. Now I have no doubr. that those who have been nominated are good men, , but are they good educationists f That is the question you are called on to answer, for a man 'may be a useful member of a Koad Board or Waste Lands Board, of a Town Council or a County Council, and yet be utterly unfit to sit upon a Board of Education, to which it might be a positive act of •cruelty to elect him. It oftens happens in the limited sphere of a province that we are compelled to take not the best man conceivable but the best that can be gor, and this accounts for the anomaly so often met with of the square man trying to fill, the round hole. But in the clerical profession for instance you may find men Avho have both scholarship and educational experience sufficient to make it highly probable that they Avould prove efficient merobers'of an Education Board. .Their administrative talents may not be of the highest order, but at all events they are far superior to men Avhose business .habits have been acquired amid the petty jobberies of local bodies. Por upwards of 800 years parochial schools were under their charge,, and in the time when they were taken from them Scotland occupied tbe proud position of being in the van of educational progress, and, therefore, I have never been able to appreciate the sentiments of those who would exclude the .clergy from our educational councils and supersede them by a. class of empirics who never yet have proved tbeir armour. Not that I would have the Board cohiposed exclusively of' clergymen or of any other . profession, but'l think fair representiou of them would be a great acquisition. In the Clutha I believe one Reverend gentleman has been nominated j one who Avas amongst its earliest settlers ,• qnewho has Jived long enough in it to love it as well if not better than the land of his birth, and one who has said much and done more to promote education than any other south of the Molyneux. As a clergyman no doubt he will be sufficiently, persistent to ensure the advancement of any ,measure with which you migh.t entrust him, and as a scholar he is capable of 'giving- an intelligent 'opinion on the most difficult educational problems. But whether you support him or not I hope you will not allow yourselves to be led astray, by tho senseless clamour against the clergy or by the new heresy that educationists are only to be found among County Councillors. As 1 have already said we teachers look forward with great interest to the approaching elections, and it Avill be a. disastrous day fur the education of Otago if you put over the teachers as their masters- a body of men who had more need ot being under them as their pupils, but if you send to the Board of Education" men ofa broad intelligence and culture; of liberal views and enlightenment, then I believe that this new Act will m-ike a new era iv the- educational progress of Otago. — <■ (Loud _4pplat.se.)